Part way through the deposition of Jaime Molera, the man trying to kill Invest In Ed, a lawyer for the initiative campaign asked him a key question.
If the initiative passes, would the 3.5% surcharge it proposes apply to him personally?
Molera would not answer, said Roopali Desai, the lawyer who asked the question. Molera apparently didnβt want to reveal whether he makes $250,000 as a single person or $500,000 as part of a married couple. Those are the only people whom the initiative affects β Arizonaβs wealthiest.
When he wouldnβt answer, Desai asked Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Christopher Coury to compel him to answer. We canβt know how that played out β Coury made that part of the deposition secret, Desai said.
Of course he did. In an egregious opinion issued Friday, Coury, who is himself a member of Arizonaβs ruling class, took pains to defend his people against the people of Arizona.
Coury is a member of a family that has owned auto dealerships for decades β you may have heard of Tony M. Coury Buick in Mesa, which closed in 2005, or others bearing the Coury name around the state. Based on my analysis of political donations and property records, he owns a Phoenix-area home the full-cash value of which is listed at just over $1 million.
The property records do not bear anyoneβs name, but the address is one he listed as his own on a separate record I came across.Β
In his ruling throwing the Invest in Ed initiative off the ballot, Coury embodied the disdain that Arizonaβs rulers feel for the majority when they try to exercise their rights. In a footnote dripping with condescension, he wrote:
βThe disappointing aspect of this case is that IIE (Invest In Ed) ignored the lessons provided by the Arizona Supreme Court in ... 2018. When a teacher specifically instructs a student exactly how to complete a math problem, and when the student disregards the instruction and does the math problem incorrectly on a future test, should the student receive a passing grade? The simple answer is no.β
He went on, βHowever, it is not unfair for a feeling of disappointment to arise based on the studentβs performance because the student disregarded the teacherβs specific instruction. IIE can be described much like the student in this example.β
Coury, by the way, is an alum of the University of Notre Dame. Heβs married to an attorney. His financial disclosure from 2016, the last year he was retained in an election, lists three different trusts of which he is beneficiary and a variety of retirement and other financial accounts.
βItβs unbelievable,β said Paul Bender, a longtime Arizona State University law professor and expert on Arizonaβs Constitution. βHeβs treating the petitioners as his students. And heβs the teacher, or the judges are the teachers.β
Thatβs not at all what the Arizona Constitution lays out, Bender noted. The state Constitution establishes the right to citizen initiatives before it even establishes the Legislature. Itβs that fundamental to the stateβs founding.
βThe whole point of the direct democracy process is to go around the Legislature, to let the voters do something that the Legislature doesnβt want to do, or to do the opposite of what the Legislature does,β Bender said. βTo let the Legislature start making the rules about how to go around the Legislature is contradictory.β
The rule heβs referring to is one that requires petitioners to write a 100-word summary on each petition that accurately encapsulates the initiative.
βNone of this is appropriate,β Bender said. βHis whole attitude is inappropriate.β
But of course, this is the attitude of Arizonaβs rulers toward Arizonaβs ruled. They know better, and theyβll be damned if theyβll let the majority even consider taxing them a bit more to pay for K-12 education. They donβt even want us to vote on it, even though 435,669 voters signed the initiative petitions.
What shocked David Lujan, one of the leaders of the Invest In Ed campaign, is how Coury adopted the βtalking pointsβ of Moleraβs anti-initiative campaign, an effort called Arizonans for Great Schools and a Strong Economy.
For example, he adopted their contention that the 3.5% surcharge is actually a 77.7% increase, because it would bring Arizonaβs top income tax rate, 4.5%, up to 8%. If you divide 3.5 by 4.5, you get 0.777, or 77.7%.
Thatβs an obvious error by Coury, though, because it misunderstands how the initiative works. The only income that is taxed more under the initiative is whatever a taxpayer makes beyond the thresholds. So, if a couple makes $501,000, they will only owe 35 extra dollars in taxes, because 3.5% of $1,000 is $35.
Thatβs less than a 1% increase.
But itβs some of the misinformation that the anti-initiative campaign, established by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, is pitching.
Among the donors to the anti-initiative campaign is Don Brandt, the former Arizona Public Service CEO, who donated $25,000, and former vice president Dan Quayle, who donated $10,000. A variety of real estate companies have donated much of the rest of the money, Blandford Homes leading the pack with a $100,000 donation.
They donβt want us to have the right to interfere with their privileges. They have wrested that right away ever since voters passed the 2016 minimum wage initiative. They claimed it would be an economic disaster for Arizona, as theyβre doing with this initiative, but the minimum wage has had almost no negative effects and did help increase wages at the lower end of the scale.
The Arizona Chamber, of which Molera is a board member, has successfully lobbied the Legislature to make it much harder to collect signatures and submit a valid petition.
In this case, Coury agreed with Moleraβs side that the 100-word summary of the initiative was insufficient. But he used more than 100 words just to explain what else he wanted in the summary.
βIt sets an impossible burden for any future initiative to meet,β Lujan said.
That is, of course, the point.
Now the Arizona Supreme Court justices, who threw the 2018 Invest In Ed initiative off the ballot, will hear an appeal of Couryβs ruling. If the pattern holds, they will uphold it β this is a court packed, thanks to the Legislature, by Gov. Doug Ducey, another proud member of the ruling class.
Our only hope is at the ballot box β throwing out all those who have tried to take away our constitutional powers. Maricopa County voters might want to start with Coury β heβs up for retention this year.
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UpdatedPima County Attorney candidates sit down with our Editorial Board, Part II